money

Tips to Live Healthier for Cheap

- Adam Clare

There’s some good ideas in this collection of tips about how to live healthier and not spend much money. It’s a good list, but I think it could do without the premise that one must buy things in the first place. That being said, if you buy exercise DVDs or gadgets this article would be a money saving read.

Skip eating out
Cooking a meal at home that serves four to six people will cost as little as $7 to prepare, compared with the average restaurant meal, which is $40.78 per person in New York City. That’s if you’re a smart shopper and buy a month’s worth of groceries at a time, says Nanci Slagle, author of The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet. For meal-plan ideas, visit 30DayGourmet.com.

Waste not
Embarrassed by how much past-its-prime food you toss each week? That waste can add up to hundreds of dollars a year! Cut your losses by using the Reynolds Handi-Vac Vacuum Sealer ($9.99 for starter kit; retailers nationwide), which preps meats, fruits, and vegetables for long-term freezer storage. Simply defrost the frozen ingredients when you’re ready to use them. Or stock up on EvriFresh sachet disks ($3.99): They neutralize the food-spoiling ethylene gas that produce releases in the fridge as it ripens.

When to buy big
If you have a freezer buy good-for-you grass-fed meat straight from the farm; use a site like EatWild.com to find local farms.

“You can buy a quarter, half, or even a whole cow for an average of $5 to $6 per pound—far less than what you would pay for naturally-raised meat at the grocery store,” nutritionist Amanda Louden says.

Six Good Things That Pay for Themselves

- Adam Clare

Being a little greener and a little richer is really easy with these six items that pay for themselves within a year by helping the environment.

5. Programmable Thermostat
Having a programmable thermostat is the easiest way to lower your heating and cooling costs. And having the house temperature right where you want it every hour of the day isn’t bad either. You can find programmable thermostats as cheap as $20 – at that price, it would probably pay for itself many times over in a year.

Greenomics

- Adam Clare

The CBC has a feature article on the emerging green economy and it’s a good read to start the week.

At the same time, some leading multinational corporations are taking action to slash their use of fossil fuels. Manufacturer Johnson and Johnson has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by seven per cent while growing its business by 300 per cent in the past eight years, according to Banks.

“They’re saving on average about $40 million a year. So, the rhetoric that this is going to hurt economies, that it’s going to bankrupt companies, is simply not the case,” said Banks.

Canadian entrepreneurs are hoping to take advantage of the growing appetite for clean technologies, which includes everything from efficient lighting to renewable energy. More than 70 Cleantech companies are now listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, including many solar technology firms.

The Rich Stop Sending Money Down the Line

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Rich snobs like Paris Hilton make other rich people bothered, and most likely entire societies bothered. Well, hopefully a trend of people who worked hard to earn their fortune not passing their wealth to their children will continue.

Being born into wealth helps people advance in life, and for people who have indeed worked for their fortune, as opposed to be being born into it, realize that knowing other rich people helps just as much as being rich. This is why people like the Late Body Shop founder leave relatively very little material to their children.

Many of these rich do not come from riches. They are self-made, and generally the self-made have a different attitude to money – or specifically, the acquisition of money – compared with those who have always had it. They generally do not, for example, have the “legacy assets” of the old rich – the 4,000-acre pile in Scotland that has been in the family for generations and must be passed on in good nick; or the idea of noblesse oblige that used to go with such assets: the responsibility to the tenants of the land, to the local community. “With inherited wealth, the current generation may simply consider themselves custodians for the time being of the family wealth and will follow the path laid down over many generations,” says Stuart Chappell, director of Barclays Wealth. “With self-generated wealth, it is the responsibility of those who made the wealth to decide what is to happen after they are gone. It is more likely that the creators of new money will feel that those who follow them should not be ‘feather-bedded’.”

Turn a Lack of Resources Into a Strength

- Adam Clare

happy

Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek has some advice for people who are questioning a jump into something new because they question if they have the resources to do it. Granted, he’s talking about starting a business, but I think that his advice can be applied to everyday living as well. He argues that by concentrating on what you have, you can do better – basically think positive to turn a lack of resources into a strength.

Excuses not to jump into the unknown are a dime a dozen. In the case of entrepreneurship, the “I don’t have” list — I don’t have funding, I don’t connections, etc. — is a popular write-off for inaction.

Little do most people know how often lack of resources is the ingredient that creates great companies.

It forces you to be clever, to dissect problems instead of throwing cash at them, and to innovate instead of imitating better-funded competitors.

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